Startup Innovation at Pittcon 2025: Boston

(Image of Boston, source: Mohan Nannapaneni, pixabay.com)

Pittcon is always an exciting opportunity to learn about cutting-edge developments in analytical chemistry, and this year's visit to Pittcon in Boston was no exception. From innovative startups to academic breakthroughs, my visit was filled with fascinating conversations and insights for the analytical chemistry startup world.

One of the standout visits was to Brightspec, where I learned about their advancements in Molecular Rotational Spectroscopy. Their newly released instrumentation should make an impact in the field, and I’ll be diving deeper into this topic in an upcoming article.

I also had the chance to talk with the startup Matterworks, which is leveraging AI to enhance decision-making in biology. Jennifer Campbell (CEO) gave a talk highlighting their focus on metabolomics, proteomics, and genomics, with AI playing a crucial role in identifying and quantifying molecules from raw LC-MS data. She emphasized the importance of high-quality labeled training sets and large spectral models. Their Pyxis system is designed for true scalability in absolute quantitation.

Another exciting moment was seeing Axcend, a company I’ve written about previously, showcase their latest technology. Their newest system features a detector (with extended wavelength range) and an autosampler designed for pharmaceutical applications, offering low bench-top space requirements and minimal reagent use while maintaining strong separation power.

Stopping by the booth of Blue Ocean Technologies, I was able to test out the operation of a digital microfluidic device, inspired by innovations from Aaron Wheeler's lab. It felt a little bit like playing a video game as I moved droplets around on little squares and then split them into two. I also learned how they are using those devices to enable lab-quality tests to be executed near the patient’s bedside.

Beyond the exhibit hall, I attended discussions led by several academic professionals sharing their latest research and startup ventures. Notable highlights include:

• Neil Kelleher from Northwestern University gave a talk titled " Digitizing Proteoform Biology with Single Molecule & Single-cell Mass Spectrometry" and noted the formation of statup ImmPro.

• Josh Coon from the University of Wisconsin gave talk entitled "New Technology for Rapid Characterization of Protein Therapeutics." He showcased advanced techniques for protein characterization and highlighted startup CeleramAb (no web info yet)

• Qingchan Wei from North Carolina State University presented on "Point-of-Care Diagnostics for Human and Plant Diseases" and talked about the formation of an upcoming diagnostics startup.

• Michael Ramsey from the University of North Carolina gave a talk "Microfluidics-enabled Multi-omics Assays with Digital and Analog Quantification"; perhaps a new startup may spring from this technology?

• David Walt, a serial academic-entrepreneur at Harvard Medical School, talked on " MOSAIC:  A New Platform for Ultrasensitive Protein Analysis"; perhaps this could be a new spin-off?

Pittcon once again delivered an enriching experience, demonstrating the ongoing evolution of analytical technologies. Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage on some of these breakthroughs!